Just acquired Nikon 5000ED scan and would like your thoughts on software for this scanner for slides and negatives? Also, could someone forward me the manual for this scanner. Did not come with one. Thank you in advance for your time.
Larry
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This is a great scanner. I had one before but sold it after i thought i finished all my scans and found some film strips left later that were not scanned yet.
You can google the manual at nikon site. I just used NikonScan 4.0.3 software with it. You can use it with Vuescan too, but i actually found NikonScan gave me better results due to Digital ICE.
Install Vuescan first to get the drivers for any Windows later than Vista 32bit. Afterwards you can install NikonScan without its drivers.
Don’t forget to clean the mirror inside and be careful when you do.
Hope this helps. Good luck.
Thanks so much for your insight to this machine. I was under the notion that NIKON’s software update was not available. The bottom line is first purchase Vuescan? Can I download 4.0 software a well from their site? Since I am a novice, any other tips for scanning slides and B & W negatives? Thnks
I am no pro either.
The NikonScan software was supported up to Windows Vista 32bit, but you can get it working for Windows 10 64bit. Just google for it and you can download version 4.0.3.
You can either install the trial version of Vuescan for its Nikon drivers or get some free 64bit usb drivers for it on the internet.
Some people favor for Vuescan, just try it out and see which one you like. Since you will be using Negative Lab Pro (NLP), then maybe its better to use Vuescan. For normal scanning (not raw) sometimes Vuescan does it better than NikonScan, it just depends on the film material/quality shots.
In case of normal scanning (not raw), if you don’t want to do much post processing after scanning, then you better get everything done in the scanner software. I have used the scanner, prior NLP existence, only for scanning and am doing all the post processing now in Photoshop/Lightroom. People recommended this, but it takes a lots of time if you have a large collection of scans.
I think using NLP would really shorten the post processing time after scanning raw format.
As i know Digital ICE / dust/scratch reduction doesn’t work on B/W negatives.
Hope this helps a bit.
I have used a Nikon 5000ED for many thousands of scans, always with Vuescan (Professional version).
This scanner is also called the Nikon LS5000, and you can download the manual here: http://www.secrents.com/images/Nikon_Coolscan_5000_Instruction_Manual.pdf
There is a lot to learn about using Vuescan!
I always scan at 4000 dpi with IR (with no adjustments) and output the scan as a 64 bit RAW (tiff) file and store these images as backed-up archives. A typical 35mm scan is about 175MB, but storage is cheap. I do all my post processing with other software because Vuescan’s processing is very basic. I am now using NLP for negatives, previously I used ColorPerfect; I also use ColorPerfect for slides.
When I come to process a scan, I re-use Vuescan to read the archived RAW file as input, apply Light IR cleaning (which came to prefer to the Nikon version), and output the cleaned scan as a 48 bit raw DNG file, ready for NLP (the Vuescan instructions are a bit cryptic, but it’s all explained).
You’ll find that the slow step is the scanning, which starts with making sure the film is as clean as you can get it (IR cleaning is good, but it’s not a substitute for physical cleaning). If you have the automatic slide feeder, slides are easy - just stack them up and go away. Negatives are slower because you have to be present to keep loading the negative strips. It is essential to plan your naming and archiving system before you get serious about scanning a large number of images. Once you have the scans, Vuescan’s batch processing features make re-processing very quick and easy.
Thanks Steve for your comments. Do I purchase the professional version or just the standard version of Vuescan to kick-off my project? I think I will just be doing normal scanning vs raw to expeditie things along the way. In addition, I have to purchase NLP software as well from Nikon? Your suggestion regarding naming & archiving is essentiail and I will set-up a external drive for off-loading the images as well. Is their a demo of Vuescan available? All the best!
I have Windows 10 64 bit yet the 4.0.3 says it is not compatible with my system. Is there another link. I saw the one for Vista. Thanks
For Vuescan go to https://www.hamrick.com/; there’s a tab at the top that says “Try Vuescan for free” - you don’t get to see the Professional version features, but it should give you the general idea. There is a support page with a lot of information, and ‘help’ inside Vuescan gives details about the options. You will need the Pro version.
NLP comes from www.negativelabpro.com and if you’re serious about scanning negatives (and, of course, you have Lightroom) you’ll get it!
Great Vuescan Pro should work since the demo was no problem. Could not d/l 4.0.3 on my computer however…not compatible. I am using windows 10 xp 64 bit. Do I actually need it (NLP) if I am using Vuescan?
Thanks
I don’t know what you mean by 4.0.3.
Anyway, strictly speaking you don’t need NLP, but you’ll soon discover that while Vuescan is great scanning software, it’s post processing capabilities are only basic. This is why people buy NegativeLabPro (which is what this forum is concerned with).